Talk to Laurie or Andrea about details of Listening Programs for your child. A Listening Evaluation can be done at any time to determine if adding this program would be beneficial to your child’s therapy services.
The Lotus Tree currently offers 3 types of auditory interventions:
- Therapeutic Listening
- Samonas
- The Listening Program
All programs utilize specially modified CDs which can be used within treatment sessions and carried over in a home program.
The use of auditory interventions as a therapeutic tool (also called sound therapy) has grown significantly. These music based programs facilitate sensory processing by impacting the auditory and vestibular sensory systems.
Clinical outcomes following a sound therapy program can include improved:
- self regulation
- attention
- communication
- temporal-spatial organization
- motor control
- visual motor skills
- handwriting
- reading
Music based sound stimulation programs find their origins in the work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis, a French ear, nose and throat specialist. In the 1950’s Dr. Tomatis developed the first auditory training program called the Tomatis Method. Generally Tomatis’s principles and theories provide the foundation for other auditory stimulation programs.
Some of the principles and theories include:
- There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is the passive reception of sound. Listening is an active process that involves motivation, intention, and the ability to dampen background sounds while focusing on essential sounds during a conversation.
- Sound training cannot change hearing but it can improve functional listening.
- The voice can only produce what the ear can hear, known as the “Tomatis Effect.” Tomatis found that when the ability to discriminate frequencies was restored to an individual, the voice was able to reproduce them.
- Processing of language is based on listening.
- The desire to communicate begins with listening.
There is an intimate anatomical and functional relationship between the auditory and vestibular systems. Both of these sensory systems are located within the ear. The cochlea forms one part of the inner ear and is related to sound perception. The vestibule of the vestibular system is also located in the inner ear. This system is a powerful integrator that interacts with all other sensory systems. It detects head movement in relation to gravity impacting balance, adjusting postural tone and bilateral coordination. Dr. Tomatis discussed the concept of these two systems sharing one role: the perception of movement. The vestibular system perceives the slower movements (vibrations) of the body and the cochlear perceives the faster oscillatory movements (vibrations), those that we can’t see, but those we can hear.
The electrical energy that is produced by sound “charges” the cortical areas of the brain. High frequencies facilitate attention, concentration, and memory. Low frequencies stimulate the vestibular system improving muscle tone balance and bilateral coordination.
Therapeutic Listening
Therapeutic Listening is an extensive number of electronically altered compact disks coupled with sensory integration treatment. The electronically altered compact discs used in this program are based on ideas and technology created by Alfred Tomatis, Guy Berard, Bill Muellar, and Ingo Steinbach. A typical program may be in place for 2 – 6 months; however individuals can continue past this time frame and/or use several CDs as part of a “sensory diet.” Clinical outcomes include improved: self regulation, attention, communication, temporal-spatial organization, handwriting, reading, visual motor skills, timing in motor control and social interactions. Therapeutic Listening programs can include modulated and non modulated CDs, as well as Fine Tuning and Gearshifter CDs. Non-modulated CDs have inherent musical qualities that are believed to facilitate movement, rhythm, self-regulation and attention. Modulated CDs have been electronically altered using an alternating high pass / low pass filter. These CDs have a strong impact on the middle ear and the vestibular system. They help build the biomechanical flexibility ear muscles which allow the ear to monitor the environment, protect us from loud unwanted sounds and assist us to tune into pertinent auditory information.
The Listening Program
The Listening Program’s psycho acoustically modified classical music is designed to stimulate or “exercise” the different functions of the auditory processing system. This enables the brain to better receive, process, store and utilize the valuable information provided through the varied soundscapes in our lives such as music, language and the environment in which we live. Certain classical music, like that of Mozart, Haydn and Vivaldi, has specific structure, producing sound waves in organized patterns. Within these patterns are vital elements including time, frequency and volume. When listening to music, the ear is receiving the musical sound waves—waves that arrive in different frequencies, measured in Hertz. These frequencies stimulate the brain, and thus affect different functions of the mind and body.
Samonas Sound Therapy
Samonas Sound Therapy CDs are based on the SONAS (System of Optimal Natural Structure) principle. SONAS musical recordings highlight the natural harmonic structure of each instrument during the entire process of recording, processing and reproduction. Most musical selections are classical and some include nature sounds. Ingo Steinbach, a German sound engineer with a broad background in music, physics, and electronics, developed Samonas Sound Therapy. Steinbach utilizes a special process (envelope shape modulator) that enhances the upper frequency range of the music (spectral activation). The higher frequencies provide the detailed information about the sound source such as location, distance, emotional state, etc. There are also brief passages in some of the music with intensive filtering (high extension passages) further facilitating the ear to attend to the upper ranges of the sound spectrum. Within the Samonas method there are several different levels of CDs with varying intensities of spectral activation and filtering.
